RAV4 and the Toyota-built Pontiac Vibe are among vehicles.

Continuing a recall crisis that could shake consumers' trust in the auto industry, Toyota Motor Corp. early today recalled almost 7 million vehicles globally including some of its most popular U.S.-market mdoels: RAV4s, Corollas, and more for various safety problems.UPDATE: The voluntary recalls cover at least 1.36 million vehicles in the U.S., and address two separate issues. The larger of the two involves the driver's airbag module, which could have damaged electrical connections due to contact with the steering column. That issue affects certain model-year 2009-2010 Corolla sedans and Matrix hatchbacks, 2008-2010 Highlander crossovers, 2009-2010 Tacoma pickups, 2006-2008 RAV4 compact crossovers, and 2006-2010 Yaris subcompacts. In total, the recall involves approximately 1.3 million vehicles. Toyota dealers will replace the spiral cable on the steering column with an improved one, which it is currently developing. Once it's ready, Toyota will notify owners by mail and conduct the repairs free of charge.The other recall deals with seat rails, which can fail in a crash causing the seat to move, increasing the risk of injury. The recall covers 472,500 vehicles, though many of the 2006-2010 Yaris hatchbacks and 2007-2010 Yaris sedans are also included in the steering column wiring recall. In addition to the Yaris, approximately 64,000 model-year 2008-2010 Scion xD hatchbacks are covered by the recall. Once it has finalized a solution, Toyota will replace the seat track assembly at no charge to owners.Toyota says it's unaware of any accidents or injuries related to either issue. Owners of affected vehicles can call Toyota at 1-800-331-4331 for more details on the recalls.“We sincerely apologize to our customers for the inconvenience and concern brought by this recall announcement,” Toyota said in a statement about the vehicle recall. "Toyota has rededicated itself to strengthening its commitment to safety and quality."Bloomberg reports that the recall of 6.76 million cars globally includes spiral cables that could prevent airbags from deploying and steering-column brackets that could fail.

The 6-million vehicle recall could cost Toyota north of $500 million dollars once all the repairs are made.

Reuters reports that the vehicle recall includes 27 vehicles in total, including the Pontiac Vibe that Toyota manufactured.

Bloomberg also reminded that Toyota "agreed to pay $1.2 billion last month to end a U.S. probe of its attempt to hide safety defects in the largest criminal penalty imposed on an automaker in the U.S. The company admitted wrongdoing and submitted to reviews by an independent monitor that will assess its safety reporting practices."

Why not recall the whole world of vehicles? Automakers are hiding everything, leaving us humans to be used as test rats. The US government should be testing every single vehicle for anything that threatens human safety....

Just saw an attorneys commercial asking if you or a loved one got injured or died in a recall related car accident and the main recall the were talking about had a big GM right at the front!! This is not going to be pretty at all. Thus should get interesting.

This is the worst timing possible for Toyota. I agree with Madison93x. Cars are completely different from 15 years ago. No matter how much something is checked over and over, something is bound to go wrong. My dad's 2003 GMC Sierra with the Duramax diesel has the same problem - the fuel injectors keep cracking. Why? Because GM was too cheap and stupid to do anything about it. They eventually stopped recalling the trucks, which meant that engine rebuilds 3-4 came out of my dad's wallet. I think that auto manufacturers deserve to do more than sweep stuff under the rug for 10 years. They need to voluntarily recall the affected cars and issue a stop-sale on them.

Pffttt. At this point I don't even care anymore. Making a comment like "airbags worked perfectly 15 years ago why not just do what you did before" is a little silly. Cars designs are very different from 15 years ago. And manufacturers are always looking for ways to alter something to not only make it better per se, but to also save money. Unfortunately sometimes something as small and negligible as a different wire or harness can turn into a major problem. Period. Also for you guys that get googly eyed over large numbers, when you sell more cars you recall more cars. It's not rocket science. When the cars being recalled are the company's best sellers expect to see numbers in the stratosphere. I see more recall stories on here that I see car reviews and still there are a lot of recalls that go unannounced. Do a little research and you'll see what I mean. Point is, no matter how much someone quality checks their product, things will always go wrong. At the end of the day, I much rather see Toyota do a volunteer recall like they did with this one than to see them try to sweep it under the rug like they did with the UA case. Likewise, I would much rather see GM voluntarily admit fault, than to try to sweep it under the rug. We work hard for our money and while I don't expect perfection - because I'm not perfect; but I do expect honesty and professionalism to be built into that 30k MSRP.

In my opinion recalls just happen because not everything can be perfect. The thing that makes what GM bad is that their upper management withheld information and the NHTSA dropped the ball on it as well. Toyota did the same thing with the whole acceleration issue. The fix for the issue was not pretty, but it fixed the issue. Their fix was to essentially cut the gas pedal in half so that the immediate issue would be fixed. Now the most dangerous recall I ever encountered was for my Nissan. It was recalled for a leak in the master cylinder and when I dropped my car off at the dealership, they said that my brake fluid was almost completely gone. Thus, if I had driven a few more miles, I would have lost my brakes altogether. I don't get mad at the automakers unless they show intention of covering up for not posting a recall.

I would like to see Motor trend investigate the methods that consumer reports use for there car rankings, as I believe they are truly biased, to have Toyota consistently recommended, even though they lead in recall`s year after year is very suspect ? Its time consumer reports quits misleading the public on Toyota cars.

Something to keep in mind is that Toyota and GM have the biggest recalls because they sell the most cars. You sell a million Corollas and need to recall all of them, you recall a million. You sell 100,000 Mazda 3s and have to recall them all.... So keep that in perspective. With that said it does seem like the biggest makers have the most number of recalls - not just in volume but in total separate issues. And I honestly think that comes from the desire to become and maintain number one status. So once on top it is all about the bottom line. Costs are cut. Quality suffers. Power corrupts, etc.

There is no excuse for Toyota here. The $500million is nothing for them but losing future customers will be especially after this latest round of recalls. If an airbag functioned properly 15 years ago why change the design or supplier just to save money?

I don't care what anyone says GM and Toyota are the 2 biggest fraudulent cars companies in most recent years. Yes every auto maker has recalls but this isn't just recalls. Its criminal activity and has to be address so that others don't attempt the same and know you will pay for your wrong doing. They should be put on probation and forced to give more than others cause of what they have tried to do. Corporate Greed!!

The automaking biz is a highly competitive one where overall quality has improved and is improving. It's also one where innovation is highly prized and continues to be a source of pride. That said, employees and their employers looking to cut corners to save a few cents or a couple of dollars here and there is not unheard of. There have been a number of examples at any of the automakers where this has happened and mostly because folks are looking for a way to impress their bosses and keep their jobs. What this has meant and continues to mean is that the autobuying public, in purchasing some of these vehicles, are literally playing a version of Russian roulette with their lives and that of their loved ones. It's one thing for automakers to get a handle on their costs but it should not be at the expense of folks needlessly endangering their lives because you are building what is basically a substandard product and passing it off as a 'quality' product. And to the auto enthuisiast media, you need to not only heap praise on the automakers for a quality product but forcefully call them out on any overhyped claims. It can't be all about access to the powers that be but also about helping us to be more informed.

NHTSA is out of control. All these recalls are do to the fact that they are under intense scrutiny with the GM ignition switch recall. Seriously, I believe in holding the automakers accountable, but this whole "watch out for NHTSA" is the wrong motivation to make recalls happen.

What are you seeing: Corporate Lawyers forcing the hands of the top brass to recall cars that they know to have issues. Never before have we seen this many from all top automakers at the same time.

Now, M/T I gotta call you out: Why was it necessary to add the other automakers on the Toyota recall(seemingly to remind readers of their recalls)but didn't find it necessary to add the myriad of recalls from Toyota to GM, Ford, Chrysler etc??

@srt_charga M/T's writers are b!tches. They didn't give you a "thanks" or anything after you gave them this link and they wrote an article on it (and they tried to make it look like their knowledge by using another source). They did the same thing to me the other day too. A-holes.

@CarNut2014 So does Ford and their recalls as of late are nothing like this. The problem is more than the number of recalls, it is the fact that SAFETY defects were HIDDEN from the public and some have even COST LIVES because of this!

@kcconnolly Your assertion that NHTSA is out of control is a most asinine one. It's not NHTSA that's out of control as it is the automakers that have been cutting corners to save a few bucks here and there and, in the process, endangering the lives of the driving public. If anything, NHTSA has been slow to act, for reasons we're mostly left to speculate on. It should not have to, too often, take outside groups or whistleblowers from within the automakers spilling the beans for NHTSA to act on problem vehicles from the various automakers who sell vehicles in this country.

It seems like MT made a bigger deal of the GM recalls as well. Toyota recalled over 5 times as many vehicles and it almost flew under the radar with MT... Come on, why is an AMERICAN magazine biased towards foreign brands? You see it in all the comparos and reviews too. We all know MT loves BMW and Porsche, as well as Honda and Mazda, though they have been getting better it seems. They always find something virtually insignificant (like one flimsy switch in a preproduction American car) that they dislike and they question the overall quality and remind consumers to as well. There's this stigma throughout the automotive press of American car quality and for the most part its unwarranted today. Sure, they made crappy cars in the 80's and some in the 90's, but what about the junk the Japanese brought over here in the 70's and that contined into the 80's and apparently into 2014 with Toyota? That NEVER even gets mentioned. Its BS. Yes, I'm a huge American manufacturer supporter, and yes they all have made mistakes, but so have the Japanese, and even the fabled Germans. All of the big three combined have recalled less vehicles than Toyota in the last decade or so. Maybe we should all be questioning them, not our own brands that employ our people and keep our fragile economy alive.

@srt_charga Just seemed like with a spree of big recalls (Recalls themselves aren't unusual. BIg ones are.), seems like customers could be alarmed in an "wow, is there anybody who does this right?" kind of way. So for context, we included the GM and Chrysler recalls.

And depending on context, you could certainly expect us to mention the Toyota recall in some future stories about GM's ignition switches.

@Stew@CarNut2014 And you believe that all of Ford's products are defect free I suppose... Look, this isn't a issue to be brand bias about. The only "fact" here is that EVERY manufacture has faulty parts and any company can have a recall of some sort on any given week. Just because there haven't been any major recalls on the Focus or Fusion or what have you doesn't mean squat. There was a recall a little while ago for 2001 Accords for transmission issues! That car is nearly 15 years old! I have no doubts of any manufacturer's product quality, but I still take it all with a grain of salt these days.

@teeemdawes@kcconnolly I don't disagree with you that it would be nice to have a world where NHTSA wasn't necessary because the automakers came clean on everything. But it's also a naive statement to think that the reason that we have seen everyone recall a crazy number of cars over the last week isn't because NHTSA hasn't been doing it's job over the last decade. The GM ignition switch recall exposed them as much as it exposed GM and now they are going out with a vengeance on any open investigations, which is something they should have been doing all along. That is why they are out of control.

@hagen.eh19 Agreed and just how they are biased for some manufacturers, they are highly biased against others. They need to take a truly medium and balanced review when testing cars and it shouldn't matter who makes it.

Yes I do apluad companies that go back and recall 10 years old cars. But they had to squeeze these recalls out of Toyota. Remember their paying billions for hiding recalls. I can't apluad both. If they weren't hiding anything, kinda what this seems like, then I would not be negative towards your comment. It was your comment about recalling every car in the world. I said no just the sucky lemons.

@Rual I know, its steering issues and other things as well, but the point I was making is that unintended acceleration didn't stop people from buying Toyotas, so "merely" and airbag issue certainly won't stop people from buying them. They're still ranked very high in consumer reports even with all the issues. I guess that's because dead consumers can't provide their input eh?